Odd Future’s Performance On Fallon Is A Thing You Absolutely Should Watch

NBC found its must-see TV last night, thanks to an intense four-minute appearance from a shock-tricked hip hop troupe of teenagers from Los Angeles. Honors to Tyler, The Creator and Hodgy Beats, with the help of Questlove (in black hoodie for necessary, bonus hardness) and Mos Def’s Kool Aid swilled “SWAAAG”s delivered straight into camera at the performance’s end, for making a rap performance the punkest thing Late Night With Jimmy Fallon‘s seen in its two year history. This take on the re-done “Sandwiches” is the latest frame of an extended week-long closeup on Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All and its creative director Tyler, The Creator: Friday came the stark and searing video for “Yonkers“; Monday the news that estimable, selective indie XL had taken him on for a one-album deal (they sign but one of the 200,000+ artist submissions a year, according to this worthy profile of label boss Richard Russell); Tuesday it was a sold-out show at Santos Party House that vacillated from dangerous and thrilling to calm-before-the-storm in direct proportion to Tyler’s appearance and disappearances from stage; and then this thing, last night. Propers to actress Felicia Day for nailing the “Wolf” to Tyler’s “Gang” when he jumped over to introduce himself midsong, and propers to the Fallon music crew for proper booking.

At Santos Tuesday Tyler showed off a slight refinement and newfound performer’s pacing to the livewire charisma he brought to the Studio @ Webster late last year. He introduced a song by saying “I plan on getting on Bill O’Reilly and scaring a whole bunch of white parents with this motherfucker” (song title: “Kill People, Burn Shit, Fuck School,” which is a good start). If white parents still stay up to watch late night TV he may have iced a couple already, though, so mazal tov. Watch the Fallon performance, and some very worthy video from that Santos show also embedded below, along with that “Yonkers” clip, to help frame his hyper-reality hip hop calibrated to cut through the static of tweetdeck Facebook feed selective attenuation. (But if you have enough attention for one more feed, @fucktyler can be worthwhile.) Here:

Xmas gnomes have never played creepier. Here’s some Santos, with Tyler doing “Bastard” into “French,” into “VCR,” with special notice to his expression in the spare moments between the two before Santos explodes.

So Elvis, the beatles/Stones, the clash, the ramones, sex pistols, nirvana, 2-pac/biggie, NWA, wu-tang, etc…….just recycled I guess? Every generation has visionaries that push the envelope and the people that don’t understand call it rebellion/lewd/dangerous. However what would a “dumbass” know?

Disclaimer: I’m not comparing Tyler to the greats, but he has the potential.

I might agree, but (and this is overexaggerating by 50,000 miles), but that’s like saying that the protests in Cairo that overthrew Mubarak are trite repackagings of MLK, Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, etc. I’d quote Ecclesiastes 1:19 here, but that was probably ripped off of something else, too. Anyway, it might be repackaged, but if it weren’t for such things, we’d still be living in caves and rocks would be high technology.

At first I was going to be all like, “I’m too old and white to enjoy this” but then I watched the second video and there were more white people in the crowd than a Wilco concert and, like, one guy was actually old enough to be bald? Now, I’m just confused…like an old, white person would be. Anyhow it was pretty sweet how the crowd had trouble figuring out “right, left” just before the chant to “fuck school.”

I like a fair share of Odd Future stuff, and the end performance freakout was great, but the song was a little weak. Not the song itself, but the sound/mixing on these late night/SNL shows is always kinda off. Still cool to see them on the TV.

Do you honestly believe that OFWGKTA are as much of a novelty act as Die Antwoord? Compare the lyrics and artistic bravado of Tyler the Creator’s (19 y.o.) recorded material with that of Ninja (nearly 40 y.o.) and tell me that you don’t pose a false analogy.

These boys from Odd Future are still quite young and their buzz is centered around an already flourishing cult-following, which was hardly the case for Antwoord (who now seem like a dated cyber-meme). If you really do want to make pompous and snarky presumptions about the blossoming career of a few teenagers then at least wait until after Goblin’s release.

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